Enrich Your Prayer-Life by Immersing in Psalms

Do you need to enrich your prayer life with strategies that teach you how to pray? Learn with me as I begin immersing myself in psalms.

I am not the prayer warrior-woman that I would like to be. I have a long way to go but would love to invite you to join me on this journey as I learn how to pray.

At the end of the day, I don’t want my life to have been characterized by prayerlessness. I want to have enriched my life with prayer to the glory of the God I love. Prayerlessness is common in our generation and I want to go against the culture and be spiritually healthy.

No matter your age or season of life, our generation is plugged-in almost the entire day. We roll over in bed to hit the alarm on our cell phone, check notifications and then stay connected the entire day.

Instead of kneeling to pray as we end our day, we continue chatting with a friend until the conversation trails off as we nod off.

I’m NOT judging you, I’m saying this because this pricks my heart pretty deeply.

I want to leave plenty of room throughout the day to stay connected with God.

It’s not that any of these things are wrong because God wants us to live fully for His glory in what He has called us to do.

We need to find a balance in our day that includes solitude.

Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me. Psalm 86:6-7

This psalm asks God to hear our prayer and urgent plea for grace.

The psalmist is confident that the LORD will answer in the day of trouble. We too can be sure that He will answer no matter how difficult our situation is.

Trust God to listen and be sure to call on Him.

Enrich Your Life with Solitude

Even if your kids are little, there are ways to find solitude in your day.

• Get up 15 minutes before the kids!
• When they take naps!
• In the bathroom! (let’s get real!)

It is easier if your kids are grown but even when they grow up, we tend to fill our day with a gazillion other things. It’s too easy in our device-connected society today!

It is sobering how we will find time to listen to YouTube, Podcasts, and Facebook Lives to the extent that we don’t leave room for some alone time, praying in solitude to God.

When I was young, I went to a friend’s house. She had 5 active little kids and often watched other kids to help another young mom. She always had an open Bible on a stool by the toilet in her bathroom!

It was such an inspiration that she found time to read her Bible. It was a testimony that even though her life was busy, she included Jesus!

Enrich Your Prayer-Life with God’s Word

Recently, I read an article interview with Tim Keller. It was amazing because he talked about reading through Psalms to enrich his prayer life. One of the things he did was to pray the Psalms.

Let’s learn to enrich our prayer life with Psalms!

It is impossible to have a profitable prayer life without God’s Word. If you have one takeaway from what I am sharing, let it be reading God’s Word and praying about what you have read.

For instance, this morning I read Psalm 8 and it turned my heart to declare the majesty of God. Reading this psalm will cause you to more deeply appreciate and observe the moon, stars, or the woods on a walk.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens. Psalm 8:1

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psalm 8:3

How To Pray the Psalms

So, we are going to learn how to open up to Psalms and pray them. Have you ever read about a wonderful idea and then get left hanging, wondering how to put that into action?

I’m not going to do that to you!

A few years ago when I was going through a deep valley I ‘lived’ in Psalms.

When your life leaves you feeling desperate, pray the Psalms!

Pray through your desperation and God will comfort you as He did me.  Reading Psalms is a form of prayer.

Make A Psalm Notebook

Make a 3-ring Binder for Psalms or buy a notebook. Then do the following things as you dig deeper into Psalms.

Immersing in Psalms!

Psalms IS the prayer book of the Bible.

Learn to be immersed in Psalms and your prayer life will be enriched.

It doesn’t take long to read one Psalm. I suggest you read one Psalm in the morning and then pray, and then one more at night and pray.

When you have extra time, study each Psalm and do a simple outline of each chapter. In time, you will have your commentary on Psalms.

If you have a designated notebook, you can easily find where you are when time is available.

• Read one Psalm in the morning!
• Read one Psalm at night!
• Immerse yourself in Psalms daily!
• Study the Psalms!
• Journal a short paragraph of each Psalm!
• Psalms will teach prayer vocabulary!
• Pray the Psalm you read!

The wonderful thing about the Psalms is that they permit us to pour out our hearts to God. We see the struggles of David and identify with him because we have sinned too.

God loves it when we SOAK in His word and pray it back to Him. His lovingkindness and mercy are great and we have so much to be thankful for!

We have hope in Jesus!

Have you been finding articles on prayer helpful in your Christian walk? Do you have a prayer request to share with me?

And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever. Psalm 41:12

This psalm was written by David when he was having trouble with his enemies.

It is encouraging to know that everything didn’t go smoothly for David. He was so much like us!

He is asking God to have mercy on him and to raise him.

I have a situation in my life that needs prayer. I will be praying for the salvation of the person causing the trouble.

Do you have ‘enemies’ in your life? How can we pray for you?